Page 11 of Her Viking Guardian

“You came here,” she said gently, “because you saw my collar.”

The silence in the room seemed absolute.

She watched me patiently. I knew somehow that she had had this conversation before, and that she knew precisely how it would end. The many different endings my imagination offered, though, all made my stomach churn.

I thought about saying something sharp, academic, and hopefully sufficient. The words in my head, though, arranged themselves into a configuration that didn’t quite function. My hand was on the door handle.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“You can try,” she said, still gently.

She crossed to the door and opened it. The corridor from which we had just come now held a very large man in a dark suit. My lips parted, and then I swallowed hard as I watched him come through the door. He didn’t seem big in the way of the Viking warriors in the carvings; he was simply large in the ordinary way of men who are very tall, broad-shouldered, and quiet-faced.

He made me think of the Chinese man I had seen paddling the girl in my bizarre vision. He moved to stand between me and the door he had entered through—the one I had been about to use to make my escape. He had a matter-of-fact expression on his face that suggested he had done this as many times as Giovanna had.

“I don’t want to do this unpleasantly,” Giovanna said. “That’s genuinely true. But we are going to do it.”

“Do what?” My voice had gone to a place I didn’t entirely recognize, something thin and badly controlled. “What is this? Who are you people?”

“Questions are useless.” She nodded to the man, and he moved behind me and took hold of my wrists, not roughly but with an absolute certainty of grip that made struggling feel immediately pointless, though I struggled anyway. He held me with both arms drawn back and my chest forced slightly forward.

Then, to my horror, I watched Giovanna crouch in front of me in the same unhurried way she had handled all the previous terrifying things she had done.

“What… wh⁠—”

She started to unbutton my jeans.

A desperate sound emerged from my throat as I looked down at her and she looked at the area below my waist, slowly but with obvious skill undoing the fastening.

“No,” I whispered. “Please… stop?” I said. “Stop, please… you need to tell me⁠—”

She had the button open. She raised her eyes to look at me, and the blood rushed to my cheeks in a wave of scalding heat. I could see in Giovanna’s gaze that I could do absolutely nothing to stop whatever would happen here. I had no idea what that would be, except that I knew for certain it would be terribly, terribly embarrassing.

“Questions are useless,” she repeated.

Giovanna returned her attention to what she was doing with my lower body. I let out a humiliating little whimper as she lowered my fly, then started to draw my jeans down.

Reflexively, I tried to kick out.

“No,” she told me, and at the same time I yelped as I felt the huge man behind me bend my arm just a little bit in a direction it wasn’t meant to go. It seemed almost polite, as violent warnings go. I stilled my legs.

“Better,” said Giovanna. She drew my jeans down to just above my knees. Her hands rose again, and her fingers took hold of the waistband of my panties.

“No, please,” I whispered. I felt my forehead crease hard at her touch there, on the soft skin underneath.

Giovanna ignored me. She pulled my panties, standard-issue gray cotton, down to rest atop my jeans. The air, moving freely down there while I stood in the grip of a big man in a dark suit, with a beautiful woman in a collar crouching in front of me, looking at my virgin pussy, made me feel faint with mortification.

“We’ll wax you here later today,” Giovanna told me. “That will help you understand.”

“Oh, God,” I gasped. “Understand what?”

I knew exactly what she would say before she opened her mouth.

“Questions are useless.” I had started to get used to that response, as alarming as it seemed. Much more frighteningly, though, Giovanna rose and looked behind me, obviously making eye contact with the man who held me immobilized with my jeans and panties down.

“Over the chair, please,” she said simply, and immediately I was propelled toward the chair, and the man bent me over its low back until my face made contact with the leather-covered seat cushion. I felt my grandmother’s pendant swing free, bouncing between the fabric of my shirt and my breastbone. I had an obscure wish to hold it, to press it against my skin. I felt sure it would seem warm to me, though I didn’t know why—neither why it would feel warm, nor why I would suppose it might.

I heard Giovanna moving around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her opening something—a panel in the wall, maybe—and taking something out.